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Volume one Issue one
Copyright Florida Presbyterian College Student Association
1970 ,
Linda Bo Jennings Jeff Weir Rod Dunck David Wise
Robby Barnes Michael Boggs Leilani Bost Jon Brannen
Ingrid Bredenburg Sherry Coogle Will Crocker Betsy Dean
and Steve Rick DelGreco Paul Haviland John McEwan
Melanie Murray Tracy Prima Bill Rasch Watson Riddle
Judy Schwartz Sylvia Schwintzer Ward Shelley Bob
Tomasello Dean Tudor Bob Tumbelston
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LINDA: I wanted to talk about education and
FPC. Mike Boggs gave me some questions last
night because he's very upset He thinks that
both of you profess one thing and operate in
a contrary manner; that you profess a
progressive education involved with society
and then hold classes like Literary Criticism
yesterday, which was very esoteric. So what
kind of classes can be run other than
classroom classes? Other than sitting around
talking about books, old things, dead things?
HEEREMA: First of all, he's assuming that
books are dead and secondly, he's defining a
certain part of reality which I really don't
know exists or not. One could ask, "Will the
real world please stand up?" If he wants to
talk about reality, my whole life has been
spent in academic environments, since I was
five years old, so you could take the track
that when I'm speaking in my classes and I'm
relevant to what is my world. But more
important than that is the crisis that we are
going through in higher education, a crisis we
must recognize. There are many forms of
education, institutions of higher learning
dealing with one aspect of education. They
don't deal with the totality of education.
Now, whether or not they should deal with
the whole thing is a different question. But at
the present time institutions of higher
learning are institutions set up to very
efficiently deal with one, and only one, aspect
of education; that is the aspect dealing with
the mind, and setting the student aside from
society for a brief period of time, four years,
and developing his "tools," of analysis etc. Of
course, this is the whole thing that's being
challenged now.
LINDA: Aren't the abolishing of the language
requirement and things like that a step away
from the traditional type of institution?
DETWEILER: Yeah. I think Boggs is right in
his accusation, largely, but there is another
aspect to it. We're groping, I think, for new
kinds of teaching and learning, inside and out
of classrooms, and we don't really know
where we're going, so that you can have a
class like yesterday which gets out of hand in
terms of esoteric statements and discussions.
In fact, I would say we are pretty fortunate if
about a quarter to a third of the classes in
each semester turn out to be exciting and
meaningful. That, for one. For another, as
Doug says, you've got a responsibility to the
existing structure, so that at the same time
that you are trying to experiment and are
groping at the fringes for new kinds of
methods and structures of education, you are
also trying to serve the institutions you've
got, in the traditional sense, by presenting
enough old fashioned hard core knowledge to
give the student who wants and needs that
sort of thing his money's worth. And you're
also doing your job by the administration,
fulfilling your contract, and that sort of thing.
HEEREMA: We also have to look at this in
perspective, too. What has happened is that
the old style of educaton, through such forms
as lecturing, was practically the only way of
communication between the professor and
the student, when the university was being
developed. Now there are many different
types of communication; there's all sorts of
mass media. This does not mean that the
lecture has suddenly become archaic and
obsolete; it means there are other forms,
alternatives to the lecture. I think we go a
little bit too far when people talk about
books and lectures as old fashioned and
obsolete; what has actually happened is that
they mean there are other alternatives, and
our failing is not that we haven't thrown off
the lecture, but that we haven't employed
enough of these alternative means. But this
takes time to really develop. My education
was all in the form of lectures and books.
That's how I'm brought up, that's what I'm
used to, that's what turns me on. It takes a
tremendous amount of energy and time
before I know even how to use these new
media. If I defend myself at all against these
criticisms, I would say give me time to grow
up and to learn how to use these things.
DETWEILER: Right. The danger too with the
lecture is that it's coming into disrepute now.
People disregard all lectures and lecturers, but
I think it remains an effective art when you
do it well. Of course, not many people can. I
think one of the things that causes Core to
often fall flat is that we don't have enough
good lecturers.
HEEREMA: Exactly. The lecture became a
kind of monopoly where the students in this
kind of system had to go to the lecture, and
the lecturer felt no responsibility in really
putting his time, or himself, into the lecture,
since he had a sort of captive audience. This
has been one of the troubles with lectures:
that it has decayed a lot. One of the real arts,
I think, has been lost on academic campuses,
the ability to tell and to write a story. It's
somehow been lost. A really good lecture
should tell a story, it should be engaging and
entertaining as well as informative. If it isn't,
it's going to appeal only to a very narrow
segment of those who are present.
DETWEILER: Something else is involved in
Boggs' criticism and that's that he, you, the
students, are expecting the professor to do all
of the innovating. This is our fault and
society's fault generally because you've been
put into the inferior position of the
master-slave relationship. I should think you
should be liberating yourself by now, so that
if a class doesn't work, yeah, you can bitch at
the professor for not making it work, but you
ought to be asking yourselves as well why you
haven't done something to make it work. Of
course more than accusations. You know, the
thing I've been trying to do in Literary
Criticism is one hell of a struggle because
students don't respond to it. I've been saying
from the first day, "I don't want to lecture; I
don't want mere discussions; I want you to
help structure the whole semester." But who
responds? Maybe a half a dozen out of a class
of thirty five. The rest still want to be spoon
fed. And then when they're spoon fed they
bitch about the monotony of it.
HEEREMA: This was a great thing, one of the
attractive things, really, about the Core
program. I was always told that you were not
even really a discussion leader, that really this
was a gathering together of people and that
you were just a faculty member in there and
were expected to keep the conversation going,
that much of the initiative in the Core
program was supposed to come from the
students, something I have found almost a
complete lack of. Secondly at this school, one
of the fine things about this school is the
fantastic freedom each faculty member and
the students have to design their own courses.
No one really tells you what to teach or how
to teach or anything; you're given a kind of
free reign to go. And it's terribly hard to
really appreciate this, especially if you haven't
experienced other schools. What with this
freedom, this ability, why hasn't a more
innovative approach to education been
generated. To ask solely the faculty to do it is
to fall into the whole trap. If you want to
make an innovative and experimental school
this means that the whole school has to be
innovative and experimental, not just the
curriculum and not just the faculty.
DETWEILER: Students have the opportunity
and the power to turn the school totally
upside down, and don't do it.
LINDA: I don't think we've had quite that
opportunity until this year, or at least haven't
realized it before.
DETWEILER: You may not have realized it. I
think it's always been there, latent.
LINDA: It's possible, but I think a lot of kids
are waking up this year and realizing it. Do
you think the College Assembly is going to be
effective in reshaping curriculum or do you
think that maybe it isn't the way we should
go about reshaping the school?
DETWEILER: I think the College Assembly is
the most effective instrument at this point for
the college. And it ought to be exploited.
HEEREMA: Well, I would totally disagree. It
seems that the College Assembly is again falling
into what I would term a sort of romantic
fallacy, namely, that by getting everybody
together in a big community, we can sit down
and discuss our problems and as reasonable
people arrive at a decision. Hopefully, we can
find that magic structure into which suddenly
everybody will throw themselves with
complete lack of abandon. And I don't think
that this occurs. I think one of the problems
is that you have everybody running around,
messing around with everything and you have
chaos and anarchy. What's got to happen is in
the very guts of the school, in the very
classrooms, something's got to emerge here, at
this level, something of an exciting nature. It's
the job of the administration to administer
and to determine the policies and direction of
the school. If you get everybody in the
College Assembly trying to do it, you're going
to go off in a hundred different directions at
once, and it's impossible for a small college to
survive like this.
LINDA: Don't you think the committees can
keep us from acting without having seriously
considered questions?
DETWEILER: Committees usually get in the
way instead of solving anything.
HEEREMA: What you do when you want
long range planning is you form a huge,
monstrous committee with everybody
represented and what you're going to have is
everybody sitting around there talking with
a bunch of vested interests, each person
making a beautiful argument for his own
particular area. You're not going to get
anywhere. What FPC needs to say is
something like "FPC is going to experiment
and innovate in this direction. If you want to
climb on board, fine, you're welcome, but
this is our direction." We aren't saying that
other directions or other things aren't valid or
valuable, just that they should be done
someplace else, because we're concentrating
and focusing on these things. And you have
to, if you're going to do this, have a few
people in charge who give direction and
meaning to the whole thing. You can't let the
whole group as a body sit down and decide
this.
DETWEILER: Along these lines too I don't
think that one should wait for a committee or
the College Assembly or even the
administration to formulate a policy, "project
a new direction," and say this is where we're
going to go. If you wait for this, you're going
to wait for the next ten years. What you've
got to do is to start innovating and creating in
your classroom, in your dorm, God, even at
the Chug-a-Lug, and then discover if what
you've got is sufficiently valid for other
people to get aboard and reinforce your
program.
LINDA: I was wondering if you as individuals
feel as if you are leaving us at a time when we
most need you to help us do these things. I
know a lot of students are woebegone because
here you two, our best innovators, are leaving
us.
DETWEILER: Nobody's indispensible.
Indispensibility is a myth, and that's not a
statement to cover up guilt for leaving. I've
done essentially what I can do here; had I not
had this offer I would have stayed here gladly
and remained enthusiastically in this program,
but essentially I've done all I can. I find
myself repeating myself in the past year or so,
in Core lectures and in private discussions, in
classroom situations and what not. So I have
the sense that my political effect here has
reached its limit. The only thing I could do
next would be to try to become an
administrator and become effective in that
manner. But if I were to become an
administrator I wouldn't have the kind of
effectiveness I have now, so in that sense too I
have reached my limit.
HEEREMA: If I haven't had my say in four
years here, I'm not going to say much more in
another four years. And I do find myself
getting redundant in my argument I find
myself continually going to my same
approach to education. Well, if people haven't
listened in four years to it, again, in another
four years they aren't going to listen any
more. Secondly, as one of our faculty
members remarked what is far more
important is not to look at the faculty
members who are leaving, but to look at the
faculty members who are staying. Don't
worry about faculty members leaving. Part of
our game in life is moving around. Nothing
flatters a faculty member more than an offer
from a new place ... to feel he's wanted
other places, to go to new places. Faculty
members are going to move. I think the real
danger for an institution is to have no turn
over. Then it doesn't cull out the dead wood.
DETWEILER: Right. I suspect, too, that in
the lit. department, my departure is going to
provide room for one or two new people who
are going to provide their sort of freshness.
And it's time for this. In addition to that, I
don't think it really much matters whether or
not FPC survives. What matters is whether
particular individuals and society itself
survives, and my job is not guaranteeing the
survival of FPC, but doing what I can to plug
in at a particular place where my particular
talents seem to be most necessary, and my
talents now seem to be more necessary in the
program I'm getting into.
LINDA: That's one of the things that some
people have mentioned to me. They feel that
undergraduate level is "where it's at," and
going to a graduate school is putting yourself
into a place where you're not going to be able
to function as effectively, and you're not going
to be working with people who are involved.
You're going to be working with intellectual
scholars who are away from society, rather
than working with the lower eschalons of the
educational system who are going to go
directly into the society and be directly
affecting the shaping of society.
DETWEILER: This might be true of a
traditional graduate school. I happen to be
going into an experimental graduate
department which is geared toward preparing
innovative humanities teachers who will be
going back into places like FPC; whose
program, in fact, is so crazy that many of
them can be hired only by schools like FPC.
So in this sense I'm not really changing
directions.
LINDA: But you are teaching teachers, right?
You're teaching teachers to be teachers, to
teach teachers to be teachers . . .
DETWEILER: Not necessarily. Some of
them, yeah, but other people in this program
are going into government service, industry,
movie-making, that sort of thing. In fact, one
of my efforts there as far as I can project will
be to look for alternatives to teaching for
students in graduate school.
HEEREMA: It seems to me that this is a little
bit harsh on graduate schools, a bit snobbish
towards them. Education occurs at all levels
of a human being's existence. It can occur at
the level of graduate school as well as at
undergraduate level. You get back to this
argument of people going back into society,
going back into what?! There's no mystical or
magical real world, and then a bunch of little
unreal worlds. Academia is a real world,
industry is a real world, government is a real
world, and all of them are different.
LINDA: Don't you feel that academia tends
to be a self-sustaining real world and that it
isn't a part of the total picture enough?
HEEREMA: No more so than industry is, or
no more so than government service is.
DETWEILER: If you want a justification for
what I'm doing, look at it along these lines:
practically every student I talk to has heard
nightmare stories about graduate school and
how difficult it is for an FPC graduate to do
well in a traditional graduate school. All right,
so I'm trying to reform the graduate school,
to prepare a place for FPC students. Really!
LINDA: Can you give some suggestions as to
what can be done here to help the student get
into remaking his educational process? Do
you think Jefferson House can be extended to
a larger number of students, do you think
that that much freedom is good for students
in general or only for the few who take the
initiative to get themselves into it?
DETWEILER: I don't know who it is good
for and who it isn't good for, and how do you
know until you try it out?
LINDA: How has Jefferson House worked so
far?
DETWEILER: I think it's worked better than
we deserve in terms of time and money— or
lack of time and money— we've put into it.
We've got a better deal than we ought to have
but we shouldn't push our luck. You talk
about expanding Jefferson House. I'd say at
this that we should first give the professors
who are in the program some time to do their
job well. Jefferson House is now in danger of
turning into a grand scale independent study,
because the fellows are so busy doing their
regular thing that they don't have time to see
their students. So you've got seventy to
eighty people running around who, according
to the script, should be in close contact with
their advisors. They aren't. Their advisors
don't have time to see them. How are you
going to expand a program that is already
pressed for personnel? We've been squeezing
blood from a turnip in Jefferson House and in
other programs around here and this is
becoming dangerous.
HEEREMA: Yes, this is the problem. First of
all Jefferson House just hasn't been around
long enough to evaluate.
DETWEILER: True.
HEEREMA: Secondly, you don't only have
Jefferson House, you have the Institute of
International Education, the program of
Jackson House, and on and on and on, and I
think the school's spreading itself too thin.
DETWEILER: So do I.
HEEREMA: It should really concentrate on
saying, "look, if you want to do Jefferson
House, fine, let's do it, and then let's evaluate
it as an experiment before we move on to
other things. What we find valuable out of
Jefferson House we will keep." Secondly, I
think Bob is entirely right: whether it
succeeds or not depends on the individual
level of the relationship between the faculty
member and the student. If you have good
faculty members who are concerned and
interested in the students, if you have
concerned students, you're going to have a
success almost regardless of what structure
you're in. Now, does the structure of
Jefferson House produce this or not? I think
that at the present time the college is
spreading itself too thin. There are too many
programs to really give Jefferson House a real
chance.
DETWEILER: FPC is still trying to compete
with universities. It's offering a proliferation
of courses and programs, even a number of
curricula. We're getting in way over our heads
in terms of personnel and finances. And
sometime soon, like yesterday, the school
must decide where its priorities are and do
them and stick to them. Maybe FPC ought to
cut down to a half a dozen majors and do
these well, and have a couple of experimental
programs on the side, instead of going out in
x different directions and hoping that the
faculty's flexible enough and resiliant enough
to absorb them all.
HEEREMA: You can't be experimental and
innovative and not hold the total school open
to experimentation and innovation. You can't
set up experimental curriculum and then hold
everything else fixed. A good example is the
fact that you have three people in each
department or four in some, but basically we
say we have to have a balance in each one.
This was created at a time when FPC had a
tremendous amount of requirements, the year
of science requirement, the math-logic
requirement, the language requirement, the
Core program, which means that you could
disperse students all over the place. When you
start eliminating requirements you're going to
get heavy concentration in certain areas. This
means that you might have to give up this
ideal of a balanced faculty across the board. I
don't know if you do have to give up this
ideal or not, but nevertheless, this should be
open for question. Also there should be one
big question: When you eliminate a language
requirement do you have to be willing to
accept the repercussions in other areas? What
we're trying to do is to confine it to
experimenting with the curriculum and now
these other areas are really getting in our way.
There are many exciting areas you can move
into; there's been a big demand, for example,
for a communications maior.
DETWEILER: Hear, Hear!
HEEREMA: But you can't move into
communications unless you're going to draw
resources out of certain other areas and put
them into communications.
Also as an economist, I see things like this:
The college has to decide what it wants to do
with its resources. It's a liberal arts school.
There are certain programs a liberal arts
school has to run. And some of these, like
science, have to be expensive. So you have to
say do you want science or not, and if you
want science, and I don't see how you can
have a liberal arts college without science, you
have to face up to the fact that it's going to be
expensive. On the other hand there are some
areas where you don't have to be expensive
that are terribly expensive around here. For
example, I should think it would be far
cheaper, far more demanding, and far easier,
if you think we need an international
education program, to run a Latin American
studies program rather than an East Asian
studies program. You see the point I'm
driving at here: if we need an international
educational program then let's adopt one in
which we have a sort of built in ability to take
advantage of a number of economies, rather
than build a tremendously expensive program
that we have no business getting involved
with.
DETWEILER: Also, we're not looking and
planning nearly far enough ahead. A couple of
things that are inevitable for the next couple
of decades are the consolidation of schools,
colleges, universities, in an area; what the
country is doing in terms of competition in a
particular geographical area is absurd. I think
that FPC, if it wants to be innovative, should
start exploring the possibilities of linking up
with South Florida, St. Pete Junior College,
New College. We're running parallel programs
at tremendous expense, nearly killing
ourselves through debts, and there's no real
need for it except petty competitiveness. We
could have interchange programs, run in a
very profitable manner, that would benefit all
schools. Another thing which I think is going
to happen eventually is work-study programs,
apprenticeships within the schools and at
other institutions in the area. We ought to be
worrying with this stuff instead of fiddling
around with piddly little things in the
curriculum. This is what's happening to
education.
HEEREMA: FPC is so built in the groove of
these directions. For example there is in the
catalog what is required for graduation: thirty
two courses or their equivalent. But nobody
pays any attention to those words or those
equivalents. You get students going out and
doing something in the community, the first
thing they want is academic credit for it. But
why? This might be something that academic
credit has nothing to do with. Why don't they
say: "Look, I've had an experience here, I'd
like it to be accepted as the equivalent of a
course."
DETWEILER: Yeah. Back to Boggs' criticism.
One thing that you can safely say nowadays is
that much— maybe most— significant learning
does not take place in the classroom, and we
had damn well better start looking for ways
of implementing efficiently a college
education apart from the classroom situation.
HEEREMA: So kids go down, two or some
students, in the ghetto area. How do you
assign a grade to that? They go out and clean
ducks. How do you assign a grade to that?
That's absurd.
DETWEILER: I have an image that occurred
to me a couple of days ago while preparing a
Core lecture that contrasts the old concept of
higher education in terms of the image of an
assembly line versus the new concept of a
college as a "switchboard." The old assembly
line process, which is a very academic thing,
puts a student into the machine, sends him
through, fills him with knowledge, processes
him, polishes him, packages him and sends
him out into society. This is the well-rounded
individual. Whereas I think the modern
college ought to be a switchboard, where you
use the college to plug students in and out of
various institutions in the community, get
him a job with Honeywell for a semester, let
him work in a hospital, let him go to USF, let
him do courses here. There are tremendous
possibilities for a variable education that we
haven't even looked at.
The university goes wrong, I think, in that it
doesn't try to plug the student into society in
the way I've suggested, but it tries to
duplicate society. The multiversity becomes a
society of its own in which it tries to offer the
student everything that he ought to be getting
outside of the institution. This is
self-defeating. FPC at least can't make this
mistake. It's far too small. It's impossible for
us to duplicate society, so that maybe this
concept of switchboarding could be done
more efficiently at FPC.
LINDA: Have you any specific suggestions
about what FPC should do?
DETWEILER: I don't know what's happening
in terms of formal structure. Do you?
HEEREMA: No, I don't.
The students have a lot more power than
they think they do. One area of power that
they should take seriously is faculty
evaluation. The students had faculty
evaluation forms but they told nothing. Not
enough students filled them out to make it
meaningful.
DETWEILER: Same here.
HEEREMA: If students are really going to get
a grasp here, they have to say, "Look, we
want the college going in certain directions
and there are certain people here that we feel
we really like." And students should really
bring pressure to move these people who have
power! Now the students are only one
pressure group, but they haven't even
operated as a pressure group so far.
LINDA: Do you think it is wise to get
students intimately involved in deciding their
education? In the past people haven't thought
students intelligent enough to know what he
needed.
DETWEILER: This is a prejudice that is
disappearing very fast. You can't expect very
many students at this point to be aware of the
main problems and configurations of
American higher education, because it's been
in just the last few years that the faculty and
administration have themselves gotten a very
sophisticated overview. I think this has
happened to both Doug and me in the last
five to six years. Before I came here, during
my one year at Hunter College, I was
beginning to become, I suppose, radicalized in
the sense that I was developing a political,
social, cultural awareness outside of my field
of teaching literature, teaching English. And
this has intensified at FPC, so that now I feel
myself very involved in the whole process of
higher education, not necessarily as an English
teacher, but as an educator, capital E. And I
suppose students ought to become educators
themselves in a way, even while they're being
educated.
HEEREMA: The student shouldn't expect to
have the sole say because there are many
different ways of evaluating, say, a faculty
member, but theirs is an important one. The
problem is that they haven't taken their role
seriously enough.
DETWEILER: Yeah. Here's something that
has bothered me lately about the concept of
student power. Students want the right to
decide and direct their own educations. Good.
They ought to have it. But students are
around a school usually a maximum of four
years, at least a school like this, so that any
one person is going to have a four-year
influence. So what's going to happen to the
concepts they've initiated later? Where's your
guarantee of the continuity that's going to
give the institution some kind of direction
and valuable self-identity? It seems that this
hasn't been thought out much.
HEEREMA: There is a different time
perspective in regard to this. The faculty
member, even though he might be around a
shorter time than the student, tends to think
this is the school where he is going to be ten
to twenty years from now. With this different
time perspective the student must realize that
he is only one force in determining his
education among a number of forces. Now
he's got to take himself seriously, but he's
also got to be content with the fact that he
can't run the whole show. And too, they try
to take over everything, and if they can't have
the total say, they kind of give up. Students
must get involved, and if they don't, they
have no one to blame for the drift of the
school but themselves. If they get actively
involved and try and then the school doesn't
really meet their needs, then they've got a
legitimate complaint.
I would like to add one thing about this
school that I'm really going to miss, because I
don't know if I'll find it anywhere else or not.
First of all this school has for its size a fine
faculty. Secondly, it's a humane school in the
sense that I've really felt that I could really
engage in discussion and argument here which
was never personalized. In other words we
could disagree and discuss and argue points,
and it was all at a level where people did not
take this as a personal affront. I think this was
true with students, faculty, and
administration. This is something FPC should
regard as one of the things it should never
lose, because it's a very valuable aspect of the
college.
DETWEILER: Along those lines I have
become broadened here much more intensely
and rapidly than anywhere else. I'm not sure
if this is primarily the FPC mystique or the
whole accelerated nature of modern living. I
think it's a combination. But in any case it's
happened to me while I've been at FPC. And
this indicates that there is something going on
here that very significantly changes people.
HEEREMA: I think that the Core program, to
me at least, has been a fantastic success; I
really achieved an education while I was here
with the Core program.
DETWEILER: Same here.
HEEREMA: And I think people who have not
participated strongly in Core around this
school have really missed something.
DETWEILER: In spite of the quasi-disrepute
that Core now languishes in, this still remains
the basis of the college. And if the Core
concept goes, then you might as well move
the college up to Grinel or Oberlin, because
then you're going to have a second or third
rate traditional liberal arts college.
LINDA: Thank you both very much. I really
enjoyed it.
DETWEILER: Amen.
HEEREMA: Peace.
Alfred North Whitehead, in the Aims of
Education, presents perhaps the best
definition of the educational process when he
says "There is only one subject-matter for
education and that is Life, in all its
manifestations." (New York, 1929, p. 6) For
Whitehead there is not and should not be the
division of the curriculum into descrete units;
there is no place for unrelated ideas presented
and not used. These inert ideas, which are
neither used, nor tested, nor even tied to one
another in meaningful ways, create an
education which, in Whitehead's words, "is
not only useless; it is, above all things
harmful . . ." (p. 1) Whitehead believes that
there should not be teaching for the sake of
teaching; that the teaching of facts should be
subservient to the teaching of reasoning.
There is a distinction to be made between the
acquisition and the application of facts;
"education is the acquisition of the art of the
utilization of knowledge." (p. 4) Knowledge,
to Whitehead, is almost peripheral to its use.
Although he does not advocate non-learning
("where attainable knowledge could have
changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of
vice" (p. 14)), he is more concerned with
being able to learn when it is necessary.
Realizing that youth by its very nature
concerned with absorbing all that is presented
to it, Whitehead is anxious that the educator
provide a framework for the sometimes
unrelated information acquired. "Education
must essentially be a setting in order of
ferment already stirring in the mind; you
cannot educate a mind in vacuo." (p. 18)
This, above all, is Whitehead's concern: that
the educational process be an orderly one, be
one which supercedes itself in regard to its
immediate and long range applications.
Robert Maynard Hutchins, the former
president of the University of Chicago, goes
one step further than Whitehead in the
requisites for education. Although a series of
lectures delivered at Yale University in 1936,
The Higher Learning in America (New Haven,
1936), speaks about problems still facing
higher education today. The financial
problems of maintaining a university, the
dilemmas of professionalism, isolation and
anti-intellectualism are considered. It is his
address on general education, however, which
is an extension of Whitehead's remarks on the
purpose of education and, more importantly,
ways to achieve this purpose. Hutchins
believes that all men, whether "formally"
educated or not, must have a common means
of expression, a "common intellectual
training" (p. 59). For Hutchins, any plan of
general education must first of all develop
clear thinking.
Prudent or practical wisdom selects the means
toward the ends we desire. It is acquired partly
from intellectual operations and partly from
experience. But the chief requirements for it is
correctness in thinking, (p. 67)
This correctness in thinking cannot be
developed rapidly, nor can it be left to
students to develop. "Educators cannot
permit the students to dictate the course of
study unless they are prepared to confess that
they are nothing but chaperones . . ." (p. 70)
In developing the curriculum for his general
education, Hutchins depends on the classics,
the great books of Western Civilization, and
acquiring the skill to read them. "I add to
grammar, or the rules of reading, rhetoric and
logic, or the rules of writing, speaking and
reasoning." (p. 83) To these he adds
mathematics. "Correctness in thinking may be
more directly and impressively be taught
through mathematics than in any other way."
(p. 84) Hutchins, like Whitehead, believes that
the development of technique is more
important than the accumulation of fact.
When the FPC curriculum was devised by
John Bevan, it incorporated much of what
Whitehead and Hutchins had described as
necessary to the education of students. To
Bevan, the FPC community, both faculty and
students, was "involved in the pursuit of
learning." (Experimental Colleges, Their Role
in American Higher Education, Tallahassee,
1964, p. 91) Much of Bevan's plan involved
independent study work, and many of the
learning traditions, e.g. no required class or
chapel attendance, open stacks in the library,
were begun to facilitate almost complete
independence on the part of the students.
This independence did not make chaperones of
the faculty; students worked in connection
with, and under the direction of, a faculty
member who was most of all personally
excited about learning. However, it is the
Core program which is directly related to
what Whitehead and Hutchins see as essential
to education. The objective of Core is: "to
equip the student for the formation and
articulation of informed, independent
responsible judgments of value." (p. 92) This
is, in essence, following Whitehead's idea that
education is a "setting in order" of the
thoughts of men. Hutchins belief that clear
thinking is most necessary is acknowledged:
"the development of skill in analysis, dialectic
and writing receive attention as necessary
preparation for value judgments." (p. 92) In
addition to the attention paid these skills in
Core, the required math or logic course also
developed the talent for analysis necessary to
the educated man. For FPC, the mandate, as
stated by Bevan, is "the engenderment of a
wholesome and critical enthusiasm for inquiry
and reflection that will extend beyond the
period of formal education." (p. 92)
FPC, has, I believe, rejected, at least in
part, the philosophical base on which it was
founded. The emphasis has shifted from value
to quantity; passing Core means reading and
not relating. The objective tests do nothing
but create "inert ideas" in the minds of
students; at no point do all of these thoughts
even approach utilization. No longer does a
Core comp help students see an overview of
their knowledge. By doing away with the
math/logic requirement, the necessity for
"correctness in thinking" has been minimized
to too great an extent. By packaging
knowledge into 14 week bundles (a required
33 courses to "graduate") the wisdom of life
is clouded. If we are to accept Whitehead's
definition of education, FPC cannot be
included. If conventional methods should be
disregarded, as FPC says they must, are we
offering anything new? Are we, in reality, any
different from the multiversity we scorn?
Warren Martin, during the self-confrontation
in November, 1968, called us
innovative — "seeking new means to
established ends, where the basic values of the
educational system are assumed to be sound".
Perhaps we are rejecting even this, and falling
back on established means, the means we
were protesting.
Anne Noris
With the demise of the language
requirement, Core stands as the only
all-college academic requirement. Moreover,
as a result of Jefferson House even Core is not
genuinely an all-college requirement.
In this unique position the Core curriculum
is likely to experience increasing demands for
reform or abolition. In the past our Core
planners have met criticism with token
reforms cunningly packaged to appear radical
or at least innovative. Probably the only Core
innovations of the past five years of any
significance were Core Science and "Area
Studies." Various other tampering with the
Core curriculum has occurred but this has
mostly resulted in the facelifting of old
programs.
I believe that, in order for Core to a viable
part of the FPC curriculum, all of the
following untested assumptions of the Core
program must be carefully considered:
LThat Core can be planned and taught
without a fairly precise and meaningful
statement of purpose.
2. That Core classes must be segregated by
grade-level.
3. That a small number of faculty must
determine the reading material for a
large number of students.
4. That books are chosen to fit discussion
topics rather than the opposite.
5. That lectures are a valuable aspect of
Core.
The purpose of Core, I believe, should be
to allow students to intensively study one
area (e.g. culture; Asia, Latin America— social
problems; racism, environment— art; graphics,
photography, etc.) for one semester only. All
these subjects could be taught as regular
courses, but as Core courses they would be
designed for non-majors who don't have the
time to pursue the subject further but who
are definitely interested in being exposed to
the study area. I question the paradox of
formulating a "central theme" each semester
then asking each discussion group to adhere
to the theme and simultaneously have its own
unique experience. In the past the central
theme has seemed far too contrived. I
therefore suggest its de-emphasis.
A second purpose of Core which I would
advocate is the acquisition of communication
skills. It has been my experience that some
students are graduated from FPC barely able
to write coherently or speak articulately on a
given theme, while others are bored by
writing numerous papers for Core and sitting
through lengthy discussions.
I suggest the collection of all written work
of each student in the Core office. This would
allow professors who had never had a certain
student in his classes before to determine
what writing skills the student has developed
and whether or not it would be worthwhile to
continue to require writing exercises (i.e. term
papers, etc.) to improve his ability to
communicate. It would also enable the
professor to determine whether the student
did "creative projects" as an exercise in
creativity or as a dodge from a task which he
was not competent to perform.
As a concomitant of de-emphasizing
"central themes" it would be valuable or
perhaps even necessary to allow students of
all four grade-levels to participate in all
project groups. I see no reason for segregating
Core by grade-levels or, especially, treating
Seniors as a group which needs special
arrangements for Core.
There is one aspect of the "central theme"
which may have some merit, viz. Core reading
lists. Many educators (and students) recognize
the value of reading widely during the
undergraduate years material which is not
necessarily correlated with any course work.
If Core is to continue requiring certain
reading for all students, I suggest the
formulation of a Core reading list of
approximately 75-100 books. This would not
be the equivalent of a list of "great books"
but, instead, would reflect our Core
professors' opinion of what readings would be
particularly valuable (and hopefully
interesting) to Core students. This list could
be relatively easily formulated by collecting
ballots from all Core professors and could be
annually revised by the same method. With a
reading list such as this, Core students could
be required to read a certain number of books
each semester or have completed a certain
percentage of the list by the end of the Senior
year. This would eliminate the somewhat
capricious reading selections which a small
number of planners is likely to make. There
seems to be no evidence that it is valuable for
all students to be reading the same book at
the same time.
Finally, I would like to raise the issue of
Core presentations. Most members of the
college community place a high value on films
as a pedagogical tool. For this reason I think
that the Core cinema series should be
expanded.
However, as to the other prominent mode
of presentation, the lecture, a great deal of
investigation should take place. Questions
should be raised such as: Why give a lecture
which reviews something already presented in
Core readings? Why give a lecture simply
because it is that time of the week and a
lecture is on the schedule? Why present a
lecture orally? Why not print copies of the
lecture and distribute it, thus saving
everyone's time and enabling the student to
review the entire lecture rather than scanty
notes?
Core has been, at times, a valuable part of
the FPC curriculum. With a greater willingness
to question some of our basic assumptions
Core can continue to be a valuable
experience.
Jay Gilbert
extension
the eye . . .
John Keyes always doodled eyes,
drawing them up & down
his notebooks, school books, diaries,
scratch pads, even one in the brown
rest room of Bid Dad's
Pizza Palace: big eyes, slant eyes, bloodshot
brown, blue, green, all kinds:
wherever John was
eyes were to be seen.
myth of
per
spec//
Am I drawing wombs with
pupils? (An interesting switch,
John being a schoolteacher) Are these
"I" eyes or cosmic eyes,
negative I's or affirmative ayes?
Am I searching for a vision?
Do I fear going blind? Are
they man-eyes or woman-eyes,
cruel I's or kind?
And back behind his brows
a thought squinted to get out:
John, maybe you drew them
because you could
and continue because you can.
Remember, you once did a whole head
of a man, but it didn't look good.
Peter Meinke
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chat I was in trouble. Sometimes
at night when I was alone in the back seat and
getting a little bit sleepy, I liked to push my
face against the car window and look up
through the wavy glass at the vapor lights. If I
let my eyes get just a little out of focus, the
purple mist stopped being lights on the road
and all sorts of really nice things came.
Sometimes there were huge hungry eyes of
giant flying saucers spying on Long Island and
New York and Westchester and Scarsdale and
White Plains. Sometimes gobs and garlands of
glowing cotton candy looped like decorations
on Christmas tree concrete poles floated by in
a dizzy blue. I could see Fourth of July
pinwheels explode in pinkness and whiteness
and lightness.
The warm light was friendly and called to
me, but my body is heavy and warm in the
back seat. They could not see me from the
front seat and I want to call out so they
remember that I am there, but my voice will
not work. My eyes are heavy but I see eager
flames reaching out to touch and lick and kiss
as they hurry into the soft cushions. They
won't let me open the window. I'm so hot
and they are cool in the front seat and do not
know how hard it is to see through the smoke
and to breathe hot air. When I tell them that
they must open the windows, they do not
listen and drive so fast that my voice is
pushed back into me. Pink tongues of flame
made crisp brown edges around the closet
door and the white cotton rug shrivels in
black spirals. Touching the suitcases and
tasting each crack in the floor, the huge hot
beast devours. It is too hot to cry, too close
to run from, and I have no voice and can not
run. Kathy Hagan
«8^
The Violation of Vanessa
(Or Vanessa Ticklebut's Totty Tragedy)
For M. P.
'I Love you, my dear."
'Words can express. . . ?"
'Yes. Haven't they done so? My feeling is not
so deep that it must be betrayed."
'You mean exposed. I never suspected your feelings
of being anything but that, so I never shared them."
'You cannot live a lie, Mrs. Ticklebut, just yet."
'I should have thought from your lover's-point-of-view-,
Harry, that I could do anything. So should you have
thought had you taken account of the fact that you
are the better part of that lie, and, as I am the
rest of it, that waiter had better make it another
daiquiri fast or. . ."
'Sir?"
'Daiquiris."
'I can try to live a lie, Harry, and I bet I get
away with it, if Charles is the same booby I
married five years ago, and he is, and I'm not
the same fool I was, and I'm not"
'Just the same, I'd hate to think you'd cheat. . ."
'Him? I'd hate the same thing were he I; meet him
half-way, that's what you imply? We're through.
The other day he asked me why, and I said 'you,'
that's it. He mentioned settlements. Harry,
we can be discreet, though I'm six months on the way."
'I hate to say it's getting late."
'You hated to think I'd cheat too."
'Now Mrs. Ticklebut, Vanessa, you come over to my place
at eight for fun and games. . ."
"Harry, you make me so hot and bothered. Oh, Harry
we will play 'to and fro'?"
Bruce Frank Walker
BO: I want to know, basically, why the
colored students on campus formed . . .
GENE: You shouldn't call us the "colored"
students.
BO: What?
GENE: You shouldn't call us the "colored"
students. Why do you say that?
BO: My heritage. Is that bad? Is it considered
a derogatory term? I like to call Negroes
Spades. I always have, and I picked that up
from San Francisco. But I don't
understand . . .
GENE: How long ago?
BO: Couple years ago.
GENE: Okay. Well, that's a derogatory term
too.
BO: It's not to me. I was living in a hippie
community and we didn't ... we called
them something else. But if they were hippie
spades that we liked and associated with, we
called them Spades. So it was not a
derogatory term. What is the best term?
GENE: Black!
BO: Black?
GENE: Black people!
BO: Yeah, but there are Negroes that aren't
black. That's the term most acceptable now?
GENE: You see Black is a political concept.
Of course there are Black people who are not
black physically, I suppose that's what you're
making reference to, but Blackness is a
political concept. The whole thing of Black
Power is not necessarily Black people— it IS
Black people reacting with each other— but
it's a political concept. Like they call some
people Liberal Democrats and some
Conservative Democrats ... so basically,
like Carmichael says, there are Black people
and there are Negroes, and Negroes, tend to
reflect the same values as the white society.
But I think in this revolution, in a way, we're
all Black people . . . although I think Negro
would indicate that their political concepts
and the actions they would use would more
nearly reflect those of the organized society.
BO: OK, well having established that . . .
why did BLACK students here think it
necessary to form the Afro-American
Society?
GENE: Because there finally got to be enough
Black students at FPC to feel that Black
students had to establish an identity of their
own. I was here a semester before there was
an Afro-American Society and I don't think
there was any Black identity. At FPC we talk
so much about assimilation— not assimilation,
to use that term, but we call ourselves a
A tO
community and we say that students come
from different kinds of backgrounds and we
commune with them . . . With the Black
students who came before, the big emphasis
was to forget that they were Black. The only
difference between Black people and White
people was the color of their skin. And we all
know that's just not true. It's true that your
environment plus maybe some hereditary
factors are the sum total of your existence.
Merely by Blacks being colonized in this
country for two hundred or more years has
made us a different kind of people.
BO: Well, your environment hasn't been at all
like ours.
GENE: But when Blacks come to Florida
Presbyterian the emphasis is on the individual.
We forgot that the Blacks here are part of a
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deprived group in society, and for all practical
purposes the college still looks on the Black
student in 1970 in the same manner it looked
at the Black students in 1963 or '64 when the
first Black came, as just any other student. We
say that we're going to forget that he's Black,
and he's going to be white, which denies the
Black student his education, because it gives
him a strictly academic education, whereas
the college teaches white kids here to
comprehend a lot of other situations.
BO: Don't you think they're missing the boat
in OUR education in the same way.
GENE: Well, they're missing the boat period.
At FPC you get a good academic education.
When I graduate with my degree in
management, I'M probably have
something . . . I'm not gonna be sure what it
is. I'll have a lot of exposure in a lot of
different areas, such that I could probably go
and be an effective manager . . . that is, if I
was WHITE I could probably go and be an
effective manager. But they forgot the fact
that I will have to leave FPC. I'm here in this
den of liberalism, but when I leave FPC I'm
going back out to the big bad world, and the
crackers out there are going to get me.
They're going to be out to get me because I
represent something different to them . . .
So, is FPC going to educate me to face that,
to know that in my whole lifetime I'm not
going to earn as much money as some white
person who doesn't have the education that I
will have. Are they going to educate me to
educate my kids, they're born with certain
strikes against them mainly because they're
Black. How do I cope with those kinds of
problems? The college thinks about none of
that . . .
We ought to talk about the real world here
at FPC. We have open dorms, and say that
people who are over twenty-one can drink,
and put a lot of responsibility in the hands of
the students. All this is saying that we want
Florida Presbyterian, more so than other
schools, to reflect the real world. And for me
it doesn't . . .
BO: Do you think they can achieve this by
adding units to the Core program. Do they
have to have a "Black Studies program" or
can they do it some other way?
GEIME: Well, we have a lot of people here
who think in a very academic, philosophic
way, you know, and they all say that they're
liberal, which I doubt, and they probably
HAVE thought about the white man's
burden, FPC 1970-"to educate those poor
black savages," but I don't think they've
really THOUGHT about us. We can't really
decide what we're going to put in the Core
program or what we're going to put in
American history here at FPC until we decide
who FPC is to educate. And it looks like now
that FPC is educating the upper crust of the
white world, maybe not the economic upper
crust, but the academic upper crust. They
have never thought about it, they've never
HAD to think about it until recently because
there haven't been that many Black students
here. But now they have to think about what
they're going to do to educate the Black
student, if they're going to educate them at
all. If the college isn't going to educate us,
then I say they should stop admitting us.
BO: Do you think you've had any success in
making FPC think about it this year?
GENE: If anything, I think I may have made
the people in the administration think that
Eugene Lewis is a rabblerouser . . . No, I
don't think they've thought about it. I think
if I could analyze the administrative position,
I would say that the administration might
really believe, in their own way, that
everybody is equal, and that there should be
equality for equals. And, really, for Black
students to come to them and say we want a
Black Studies program or we want you to
have a special Black admissions program,
where you go out and spend a lot of money
on bringing Black students here. They look at
that and say; "We don't do that for white
kids. Why should we be doing it for these
niggers?" They say "We've got to be
equal." . . . That's a good theory; that's
equality for equals, like for like. But the only
point that they don't think about is that we
didn't start out as equals. I consider all the
factors that got me to Florida Presbyterian
were a lot more work for me that it was for
white kids. I feel that if my scores were the
same as another, a white kid's who came to
FPC, I worked a lot harder, period, ... to
make that particular score. And I just say that
they don't regard the fact that we aren't equal
when we come here. I remember when I was
from the students on this campus?
GENE: I don't think there's any overt
discrimination at Florida Presbyterian, the
kind that we can stand up in a meeting or go
to Dr. Wireman's office and say, "Listen, Dr.
Wireman, I'm Black; I've been discriminated
against." We can't say that. Because racism
here at FPC has taken a very subtle form.
BO: How do you feel it? I remember you
mentioning to me once that when the Black
issue was being discussed at house meetings,
you knew that if you went to the house
meeting, the issue wouldn't be discussed.
GENE: I think that most of the white kids
here are afraid of letting Black people know
their background. Imagine this: if I sit in Core
one day and I turned to the whites and said,
"You know, you're all a bunch of
nigger-haters," they'd all look at me and say,
"Oh no! God no! I'm a liberal." Not a liberal,
that's a bad word, but they'd say something
like "I never done anything to Black people."
But I find on most part that white kids on
this campus hide behind that. I have had less
than ten honest discussions about Black
people with white people on this campus,
because they want to talk about the Black
person they befriended in their home or their
maid or somebody like that, which doesn't
won't talk to the Black one.
GENE: That's the thing that black kids don't
trust. When I came here every white kid
whom I came into contact with on this
campus was friendly, nice, cordial, like "I
never did a thing to a nigger in my life," that
kind of thing. I can't really relate to that.
BO: Well, even if you try to relate to it, don't
you find that white kids will tell you I love
everybody, but they're actually reluctant to
sit down and talk to you and actually form a
friendship of any sort, a freedom of
exchange of opinions.
GENE: There are few white students who I
can say our basis of relating is not that of
race, where we can relate on issues other than
race and where when I approach these
students about an issue of race they are going
to indeed think about it and not throw me
that liberal line back. I think the majority of
white kids are afraid, afraid of Black kids,
physically afraid.
BO: Do you find this also because some of
them haven't come into any contact with
Black kids?
GENE: OK, agreed! And this is where the
college comes back in. The college should be
doing something about this, the fact that
students don't relate to each other. I could
relateto me, because I relate to what's here think about times, like the big thing last
Mtwm
in high school they used to talk about some
white boy who was very smart ... His
father had his PhD. before he was born, or
right after. So this kid was raised by Dr.
Spock and all of those books, and he was
RAISED on books. If the kid hadn't been
smart, I would have thought he was retarded
or something. That's not the case for the
majority of Black people. That's just not the
case. We AREN'T raised on books. So I figure
that when a Black kid does real well in high
school, he's evidently doing a whole lot. I
think that FPC should look at some of these
factors, the fact that we don't come here as
equals, that you can't treat us as equals of
white kids.
BO: Have you experienced real discrimination
and now. No one ever called me a nigger since
I've been here, but I hear from white kids that
white kids who are supposed to be very
liberal, call me nigger behind my back. But
you know I don't care about that. —For all
practical purposes Blacks on this campus
don't communicate with anybody but other
Blacks.
BO: Don't you think that whites are afraid to
associate with Blacks, that there's something
holding them back from being as friendly and
open to a Black person as they are to a white
person, something from way back, something
that is prejudice but is not overt prejudice,
but yet if they meet two strangers and one of
them is white and one of them is Black,
they'll go talk to the white one but they
January where the dance was closed. They
closed it because of the Black people. The
Black people coming out here were getting
out of hand. So we're going to close the
campus up. If we were to look, we'd find that
the biggest reason that the campus is closed
up is because the white people on this campus
are afraid of Black people. The whites who
come out to our campus mix more readily
than the Blacks. They disappear, they're
white, you can't separate them. They
integrate much more easily into the other
white students on this campus . . .So things
happen like the little white girls on this
campus talk about Blacks assaulting
them-harrassing, that's the word. They
always get harassed. Well, you know, really.
what they call harrassing is simply that they
don't know how to relate to Black people.
When I look at my house, and I say that my
room mate, (who is Black) and I live in Ibsen
23, we don't live in the house, because for all
practical purposes we don't relate to members
of the house ... I shouldn't say that we
don't relate to them, because we probably
could relate to them, but members of the
house don't relate to us ... We can stand
and talk, but I'd say ninety per cent of the
questions white kids ask me in the dorm are
academic questions, questions about the
classroom, or questions about Black people.
Recently, since I'm director of SOB, I get
questions about social things. But as far as
just general kinds of things, I'd say I can't talk
to the majority of kids in my dorm. If I
wanted to just go into somebody's room and
have a bull session, just go in and talk about
anything that might be before us, just jive
around, I couldn't do that, because if I came
in and there was a group of other guys, it's be
like I was an intruder, and it's not just in my
dorm but I think a lot of Black kids on this
campus express this kind of thing.
BO: It must be terribly restrictive. I know I
spend time in about three or four different
rooms in my dorm.
GENE: Like I said, we only reallv
communicate with other Black kids! There's
only twenty-three Black kids. There's not
much variety for Black kids. We have to relate
to the same twenty-three people all year
long . . .
BO: It must be pretty hard on the social life
too. . .
GENE: Sore subject! Sore and
short. . . .[There needs to be a study done.
We need some professionals to come in and
study the purpose of Florida Presbyterian
College. We could title the whole thing—
"who is Florida Presbyterian to educate?".
And this would take in the whole spectrum of
the college, and part of the spectrum would
be to decide, does Florida Presbyterian
educate Black kids? Or is it just to educate
white kids, a certain class of white kids.
BO: Are you aware of the fact that there's
strong disagreement among members of the
faculty about what this college is and what
it's supposed to be and supposed to be
doing?]
GENE: Yes. I think one of the bad things
about a school like FPC is that we have so
many people who were here before the walls
went up and to them FPC is more than just
the place where they go to make their living.
And I think that for any college professor it
should be more than that. But for a lot of
people FPC has become like a member of the
family. It is something that, . . . well it's a
sacred cow. And when you criticize FPC for
its shortcongs, it's like you're criticizing these
people as well. Because they haven't been in
on all this "walls going up, campus moving,
and all that," to the new faculty FPC is
education. Their sacred cow is education,
whereas with some of these other people
education and FPC have become one. It's a
problem! It's a hassle! ... I think basically
if we look at the whole faculty at FPC, the
majority would term themselves as liberals,
and not just liberals who started when they
came to FPC, but who came from what we
call a liberal tradition. For the most part FPC
has been a living liberal tradition for them.
FPC to get an education. I didn't come to
educate white people . . . That's the
college's job, to educate. . . . This does not
necessarily mean I'm not going to talk about
Black people, but that's not my purpose. My
purpose has been to get an education,
whereas, if I have to be more than that, which
I think Black students on this campus and on
a lot of other campuses are forced to be, then
I'm doing more than get my education. In
essence Black students on this campus are
gradually taking a role ... of telling . . .
our administration . . . what our needs
are . . . But the problem is when we tell
these people what we need. When it's not like
what they've read in the books, they get
twisted out of shape. They say, "How can this
kid tell me . . . I've got seven letters behind
my name, AB, MA, and PhD. How can this
jiggaboo tell me? I've read the books, I went
to Selma, I resigned my job when they
refused to admit Black students at FPC. How
can be tell me?" . . .
BO: Assuming that it's possible that there are
some sincerely concerned white students on
this campus, what do you see as their role in
this issue.
GENE: I can see a white student going to the
administration and saying, "I may have come
to Florida Presbyterian, where my day-to-day
?
Look at the people in the administration.
Most of these people have been liberal all
their lives, maybe, and they really thought
they related to Black people. And so for a
Black student— or a Black, period, to come on
this campus and say you don't know me,
"You don't know what I'm all about." I'm
sorry! It's to slap that man on his face and say
"Move over, Jehovah." . . . They who have
gone to great pains to cleanse themselves of
racism, to come into the valley of . . .
cleanliness And they've read all the books.
They could probably quote King or Gunnar
Myrdal. . . . They suppose that they know
what Black people are all about . . . For
them integration is the thing . . . Whereas I
didn't come to FPC to integrate, I came to
dealings were essentially with white people,
but I'm not going into a world that is
essentially white. Prepare me, FPC, to go into
that world. And I don't mean to give me that
line about we give you a broad liberal arts
education such that you can adapt to
situations. This is a real situation which I
don't know how to adapt to because I've had
no instructions in all my life on how to adapt
to this situation. FPC you teach me to
approach all problems. It's your job to give
me instructions." If white kids would say
that ... we would have a program that
could do that sort of thing. Somebody has to
take the initiative to teach the Black students
how to relate to white students, and white
students how to relate to Black students. FPC
should do this. Right now we're moving to
the point where we have two very distinct
groups on campus, the white kids and the
Black kids. In fact, I think we are there now,
and it's solidifying. We're going to have to
move away from that. And we can't move
away from that by putting all the blame on
the Black kids. I've heard the line that the
Black kids eat together in the cafeteria
because they're showing their identity. . . .
You know, the "Black is beautiful" sort of
thing. Black kids on this campus eat together
because they don't want to be bothered with
white kids. They want to be able to sit down
at a table and be able to discuss something
other than race or what was done in the last
class. We're not up for that all the time. You
want to relax and be with someone who
understands you to the point that you can
say exactly what you want, in the exact
tongue you want, where you don't have to
think of the proper way to say it . . . where
you say it exactly the way you want without
someone looking around and saying "oh
goodness, I don't understand that. Repeat it
again." It's just the fact that there's no basis
of relating between Blacks and Whites in the
cafeteria ... I once heard in a lecture
something about some famous American
saying, "I can do business with anybody, but
I'm very particular about the person whom I
sail with, because that's me." . . . What
about the development of self? That's what
Blacks don't get here. We sit at the table and
we discuss things which are just nonsense
sometimes. . . I think when you eat you
don't want to think about the pressing
problems. You want to look at things from a
very relaxed standpoint . . . There is just
this huge problem of relating,
communicating . . .
BO: Do you think this school has made an
honest effort to recruit a large number of
Black students next year?
GENE: No.
BO: Do you have any idea what the number
of Black students is likely to be?
GENE: No more than this year.
BO: No more?
GENE: I would say that next year we'll
probably start off with . . . perhaps thirty.
Perhaps, I doubt that many.
BO: Can you get any indication of why? Are
they really not trying to recruit any more
Blacks?
GENE: Well, I think the big point is that the
admissions people, probably not through any
direct failure of their own, are not able to
recruit Black students. I was looking at that
report that was sent in to the Civil Rights
Dept. about FPC's compliance with the Civil
Rights Laws. And I was somewhat appalled
by the fact that of all of the black schools
that the admissions counselors have visited
this year, that I visited more than half of
them while doing my Winter Term project.
And it was even more appalling that the
admissions counselors had visited not
predominantly black high schools in Florida.
And where's FPC located? In Florida! . . .
Right here in dear old St. Petersburg. I was
appalled by that . . . The priorities in the
admissions office are such that they don't
visit Black schools because the likelihood of
them going to Black schools and enticing
Black kids here to FPC are less likely than
enticing white kids from white high schools.
So I think the motive is that they'll go to the
place where they can get the most students to
come here. . . . They have to get three
hundred and fifty students ... To bring
more Black students here a pattern has to be
established and that's not going to be done.
Besides the college isn't doing anything to
help the Black student, once he gets here, to
adapt to a predominantly white culture . . .
Blacks come into a white culture and are
expected to relate to that culture . . . The
Black students on this campus have pressed
the admissions people about hiring a Black
counselor, but I don't think they are
interested. In fact, I don't think the college
has the Black student in mind, really.
BO: Sometimes I wonder if they have the
student in mind at all, because we find that
when the white student is making demands
that we want our education to be such and
such, we're usually ignored, too.
GENE: I'm beginning to believe more and
more that the only thing that FPC is going to
react to is an abrasive action. I mean an action
that's never happened before on this campus
and I'm not alluding to students taking over
buildings or anything like that because that
wouldn't be effective on this campus . . .
Some action is going to have to come from
students, and I think it'll probably come from
Black students before white students, because
at this point white students are not in as grave
a danger as black students are. I think there's
going to have to be some action to make
people see that FPC can be damaged ... I
can see what you said about the
administration not thinking about white
students. It's all FPC, and FPC to them is this
big educational experiment. In a way they do
forget the students. They forget the fact
that, in all this experimentation, we're only
going to be here four years. FPC's not our
lives. It's only a section of our lives, four
years, then we become alumnae, we are no
longer in the actual working of the college. To
me these four years are probably the most
important four years of my life. I think some
abrasive action is going to have to come. The
students are gonna have to say, "Look I'm
still here. I'm only going to be here four
years, but I'm paying three thousand dollars
for each of those years." Joyce Miller wrote a
letter, and in her letter she was really saying,
"I should sue FPC for breach of promise
because they haven't done a thing for me
other than in a purely academic way, and in
the catalog and in our philosophy we say
something different. And I should sue you for
breach of promise and tell you to give some
of my ten thousand dollars back. Give it back
to me! . . . You haven't done what you
promised, so give me my money back." . . .
I remember last year at the convocation
Trustee Sheen said we were beginning a new
decade at FPC and we are indeed beginning a
new decade. . . I think for the first ten years
students were content to let the FPC
experiment continue undisturbed, because
basically it was a good thing. It wasn't to the
point where students were being harmed. But
I think now we might be harmed a bit. I've
heard things on this campus about how many
emotional problems there are among the
students, and I think I observe that the
students are probably more unstable here at
FPC than we find at most places. And I don't
see anyone doing anything about it! The
people seem to just be waiting, lying in wait
for the big thing to happen, like we've had a
few drug busts and all this stuff and yet
nobody's done anything about the drug
problem on campus. Nobody's doing
anything. Instead we just let it lie. I think the
big awakening thing is coming to FPC. I don't
think the point has come yet where FPC is
either going to come around . . .like they
say in the ghetto to the white people, "You're
going to come around or we're going to burn
this place down." —I mean we're gradually
approaching the point where Black
students— or maybe white students,— or
maybe students period are going to say,
"FPC, you are going to give me a relevant
education, you are going to prepare me to
meet the world, or there is going to be no
FPC." That's coming! I really think the point
is coming when students will say, "We're
going to pack up, we're going to get it right or
the college is going to have to fold for
me." ... I think most of FPC we need. But
there is more, there's always more, to be
done. It seems like the college may have
started making me a round person before they
made me a person. They try to round out the
edges before they ever get to the middle.
They never got to the middle of me. They
never found out what was there. We're trying
to make me a philosophical person, we start a
semester abroad program, a finishing school in
London. What about the fact that I'm going
to finish in London but I'm going to live in
America. What's going to happen when I leave
here? ... I know one girl who graduated
from FPC and she had this great FPC
education, and she went to Boston and she
couldn't get a job. She couldn't be nothing
but a secretary. She has paid nearly three
thousand dollars a year over a four year
period to get a unique FPC education and
now she's a secretary. You can be a secretary
without going to a year of college. What has
FPC done for her? She questions that now.
And Black students; you look at the great
Red Singletary who left here a couple of years
ago. He went away and ... he sent poems
back to be read at the Black Symposium last
year, and the people were shocked because
Red had gone out and he had rebuked FPC.
His big words were, "FPC. Why, FPC, are you
out of touch with reality?" And people
couldn't understand it. What? Red Singletary,
the perfect black student-or the perfect
student, maybe, and Red comes down on
FPC ... As FPC gets more Black students
this reaction is going to become more
BO: Do you think that there is anything
significant the student association can do to
relieve the social problems of the Black
students here? Realizing, of course, that it can
be relieved best by having more Black
students. But we can't do that.
GENE: We won't do that.
BO: But I think-the students haven't yet
realized their potential power.
GENE: That's the point. I think the biggest
thing the SA could do it ... to make white
kids begin to think. On this campus, I am
amazed at times by the pure academic
thought, classroom thought, of white kids.
But they don't think outside the classroom. I
think most FPC students are behind if we
relate them to some kids at traditional
colleges, concerning political thinking about
the outside world. We come to FPC and we
become an exclusive community, highly
intellectual, and look upon the people in St.
Petersburg as being something from Mars. But
that's the world out there. St. Petersburg is
the world we're going to have to go back and
live in when we leave here. We're only going
to be here four years. But we don't relate to
them. Until we start relating to those people
in St. Petersburg, what have we got? It's
unreal. It's an academic world ... I can't be
getting my BA for the next sixty years. I can't
increased their efforts to contact black
students in all the high schools they have
visited. We believe that our own black
students can do the most effective job of
interpreting the college to prospective black
students and, for that reason, we have
increasingly sent some of our own black
students into predominantly black high
schools. This process began last spring with a
swing through Florida black high schools and
continued this year with a fall trip to Atlanta
and Gene Lewis' Winter Term travels for
Admissions which took him as far north as
Virginia. Last year 26 black students enrolled
in the college, 11 for the first time. As of
April 7, 32 black students had applied for
Admission in the fall of 1970.
2. What, if any, plans have been made for a
Black Studies Program next year?
In the fall President Wireman appointed a
Black Studies Committee to look into this
matter. The committee has met and has sent
its report to the Academic Affairs Committee,
which will in turn transmit the report, with
possible amendments, to the College
Assembly. The report of the Black Studies is
in process of coming into existence, and
» 0J. . _„• i.. l :_ „,4. .„-,+;«., rprnmmpnrte that the colleae DOt Seek tO
apparent. And as FPC gets more white
students who, indeed did not come to FPC
for a "finishing" education, but came to FPC
because they thought it was a gem in the
educational world, they're going to be saying
and writing back the same kind of things.
With me it's got to come before I leave here. I
do plan to graduate, and I do plan for my
degree to be relevant. When I graduate it's
going to be relevant degree. I refuse to just
hang it up and say forget it. I refuse to do
that. I'm going to say FPC "You owe me
something, you invited me to become a
student here. You chose me and I chose you,
it's like a marriage, and it's going to be a long
time before we get a divorce." I think that's
the thing.
be getting a purely academic education,
can't live here at FPC. It's not Walden II.
Questions: Linda Jennings
Answers: John Jacobson, Dean of the College
1. Has the Admissions Office made an effort
to recruit a larger number of black students
for next year?
The Admissions Office is making an effort
to recruit a larger number of students. In the
fall of 1970 we hope to have 350 freshmen;
we had 280 freshmen in the fall of 1969. The
Admissions Office is intensifying its efforts to
recruit black students. Our Admissions
Counsellors have visited more and more
predominantly black high schools and have
recommends that the college not seek to
establish a distinct Black Studies major or
Black Studies program in the foreseeable
future. At the same time, the report
emphasizes that there are a variety of topics
relating to the experience and history of black
Americans and to Sub-Saharan Africa that
should be brought into the curriculum as new
courses or as new elements of existing
courses. In particular, the committee
recommends that consideration be give to
devoting a unit of Core 101 and a unit of
Core 201 to Black Americans and that one of
the options in the second semester of Junior
Core should be a course on Sub-Saharan
Africa. Finally, the report notes that "One of
the most valuable learning experiences for all
students, black and white, will be learning to
live together and talk together, respecting
differences, and in creative tension." A
renewed effort is required: an effort to talk
together, to understand, to be patient with
what we don't understand and to create on
our campus a genuine biracial community.
3. What do you see as FPC's future policy
toward Black Studies and black students?
Our policy toward Black Studies will be to
incorporate material relating to blacks and to
Africa into existing elements of the academic
program. As I indicated earlier, the Black
Studies Committee recommended against the
establishment of a separate Black Studies
major or Black Studies program.
The policy of the college toward black
students will be the same as its policy toward
all students. The main reason that any
students comes to FPC is to get a superior
liberal education. This is what we offer and
this offer is sufficient to attract a considerable
number of students, black and white.
Like most colleges, we have considered
setting up special academic and counselling
programs for black students. Our present
thinking is, however, that the black students
that we want to attract do not need and
would not benefit from participation in a
program that would set them apart from
other students.
FPC needs to attract, keep, and graduate an
increasing number of promising black
students. This is an effort to which every
segment of the community can make its
contribution: the Admissions Office by
skillful recruitment, the faculty by relating to
black students in a loving but at the same
time thoroughly professional and
straightforward manner, the students by
fostering a spirit of friendliness and mutual
respect.
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Yesterday Became a Foster Child
I usually regard it
with tolerant humor
very much like children
are
although my step- father
was a street jockey drunk
when he was twenty or so
he would go down to the
corner street bars
and sit mindlessly in the
corners of countless
whisky and wine bottles
from friday to monday
on weeks
and beat up on mother the
rest of the month . . .
mon and i grew bored with it
and we left him to drown in
those mindless corners that
he said, "assuaged the afflictions
of his reality."
Randolph Singleton
give it to gillot
s. beckett
4*r , ■-, Jm: ■•
A«t9Ufli?i0> ; ^#}M&
so you're the kind of vegetarian that only eats roses;
is that what you mean with your beautiful losers?
1. cohen
Do you think my hand could do a cartwheel? If
he fingers fell off and wrapped around a chicken
Irumstick and if you stirred in a little cyclomate, a
linch of concrete, and a cup of melted
onversation, it might just be possible, but
leavens! . . . such temerity certainly would be
oppressed by the god of wood and alphabets,
vould be banished forever to the land of drunk
ish. Anyway the streetlights (yes I know) would
tand on their heads and spit gloves, gloves?,
:urtains?, wait that's not right, no, it's, well, what I
aw (saw?) was, but no, what's above is related to
omething else, and if everything would just keep
till — now stop I want to get this straight. If
rou're keen you can see the radio tower climb so
ligh that your feet melt into the grass and
lirplanes play Beatle music, lounge chairs talk to
buses oblivious to the watery sounds above.
And further on, I bet you didn't know that it is
possible to subtract ink from noisy haystacks and
you can see balloons carrying thousands of facts
and cold air and relationships, and truths, and
symphonies over to a processing area where they
produce hand made rehearsals of the most
exquisite quality. Now if all posters and mailboxes
only would cooperate and burn down all roofs,
such nonsense could be immediately halted. But
only pigeons see any rationality behind society and
only solidified sociologists see that you just can't
bend ideas into well-ordered and functional
quanta. Washing machines still float on oceans of
transparent deserts and walls stand always in
straight lines unable to populate the universities
because they just don't have the power, it's so sad,
to be more than they can imagine. Why must there
be such problems for mankind? So the only hope I
see out of this mess is to get a huge lever and tilt
the whole interstate highway system so that all the
wine bottles, matches, trees, cows, pillows, steaks,
glasses, governments, beaches, towels, napkins, IQs,
directions, joys, victories, sadnesses, coins, ruins,
city-states, elephants, blue houses, Black militants,
strangers, communists, farmers, salesmen,
engineers, salt and pepper shakers, and the candles
just slid and all went rolling, crashing, falling,
sliding, slipping, and toppling off the edge, then,
then things would be really different and . . .and
then ... oh boy! then my hand could do a
cartwheel.
Walter Pharr
"Did you hear what Paul said?' David asked
me. " 'This is us in fifteen years.' but there
won't be anyone to clean us up, or any way
to do it." Maybe no reason to clean us up,
either, but that was felt and did not need to
be said.
Straight off, "It will work best to pour oil
on his back," Dr. Reed said, "mineral oil is
the best, but any vegetable oil works fine, and
just rub this in very well, under the wings,
around the legs, and where they attach to his
body, and the head." Vaseline for his eyes;
this cannot be done too delicately. Be
confident, and calm, also, for the bird will
sense your calm, or panic, and he will
respond. All around, silly people really
worked hard, but did more harm than good
by frightening their birds more than was
necessary. I talked to my loons, and they
really did seem to take comfort in these small
efforts.
When the feathers have come to a state of
semi-saturation from vegetable oil then some
kind of abrasive material should be worked in
to absorb the oil and petroleum. Try to find
something not too abrasive, corn meal is
good, but the very best was a fine powdery
corn starch. It has to be dusted on and into
every crevice, and then try to brush it out
again. The results of this process are amazing,
and working at first with David and Heidi
filled me with hope for a hopeless situation.
The key of David's technique was
thoroughness. The sections that I did he
would always do over again, and they came
out more clean. The further we went the
more proud David was.
The loons almost always went beserk at
being washed. The water should be warm but
not too. Just a bit above our body
temperature is right. Two people must work
with a loon and maybe a third to facilitate
getting clean water. The birds are susceptible
to chill between baths and they also become
hypernervous. The only thing to do is
continue and remember that it is the only
way they have a chance to live. Hold one
hand on the bird's back always, never leave
him alone. Your hand is warm, and if you are
calm, it will have a calming effect upon the
bird.
With care, detergent must be worked into
the areas around the bill and eye, and the rest
of the head. Many left birds with unclean
heads. They would not attempt to clean
them. The first loon I worked with got a film
of detergent over his nostrils, and began to
blow bubbles. Then the film formed over his
eye lid. The loon frantically moved the clear
window cover back and forth to clean out the
soap, and tears came in his eyes. I saw a cup
someone had tossed aside, and I immediately
ran to get it full of clean water. With this I
irrigated his nostril area and eyes. This proved
to be an excellent idea, and so I always kept a
cup of clean water with me to wash the poor
birds' eyes with. I also irrigated the birds' eyes
that were around me. At the beginning of
each new rinse, the bird's head should be
coaxed under water, and this will rinse it off.
They will cooperate with this readily. At this
point I wondered if my bird could breathe
efficiently, and so I decided to take off the
rubber band that was binding his bill together.
This worked fine. It will make the bird
naturally feel more secure and more at ease.
You hold his neck, and if he can't spear you
well he will not be able to bite you. One
warning that shouldn't be forgotten: loons are
capable of flashes of moving their necks, and
so always keep your eyes more than the bird's
neck away.
After being washed with soap and water,
the bird has to be dried thoroughly. Then
more oil can be worked into his feathers, and
the process over again. Sometimes when I had
to work alone I would use both hands to
clean feathers and not hold the bird's head. I
kept talking to the bird, and he remained
calm. So many people were afraid of the
vicious loons, but they will become docile if
handled with confidence. The nostrils of the
birds have to be cleaned with Q-tips. This
helps their breathing. And if it is available an
eyedropper or syringe should be used to inject
the water like sneezing, and that is also good
for removing some of the tars that clog his
nostrils. I got an extra person to hold the
bird's body, and one person to hold the head,
and I opened the loon's beak. It seemed
impossible at first . . . The bird is frantic
and his sudden flinches cannot be stopped. It
worked for me to let the bird bite down'on
my thumb and thumb nail while the inside of
his mouth was swabbed out. This way worked
best, and really doesn't hurt very much.
With all the different sea-birds that were
being worked on I wanted to clean the loons
rather than the small ducks and mud hens.
The loons are much more challenging, and
many other people were afraid of them,
although it was impossible to clean a loon.
People really worked together incredibly.
McDonald's fed us. Stranger "Here, have a
bite," and thrust a doughnut in my mouth.
Later coffee brought round. Many came to
look, take pictures, and bring home ducks.
Many came just to have been there. This
really made me feel bad. I came to help the
poor creatures. I also came to alleviate my
own conscience. It was fun to get really all the
way filthy. The filthier I got, the more I felt I
had accomplished. This is bad, worrying
about impressions, images. The loons did not
care who took them by what they looked
like. I felt though it was much more
important to do one really thoroughly than
maybe ten mediocre. We did three. That is a
pretty good day's worth.
Will Crocker
Contacting My Senator about Ecological Threats to Survival
I wrote him a post card,
but by the time it got to Washington, it had
traveled through so much smog
that the letters were covered with grime,
and he couldn't read it.
So I wrote a letter and sent it by a friend,
but — unfortunately — she drank some polluted water,
and died on the way.
So I wrote another, and gave it to a farmer
to take with him when he went to protest
the meager raise of his payment
for fallow land.
But he ate an apple sprayed with
Super Bug Kill XXZ8, was poisoned,
and lay in the Geno Side Hospital for two and a half weeks.
In desperation, I called him up, over Ball
Telephones, that Elevated Establishment
responsible for spiking the landscape with polls.
Final tally: 92% for, 8% against;
the minority was cut down. They were not
social pillars. Just
oxygen-giving trees.
But when he answered, I was seized by a fit
of coughing. Industrial Waste
was caught in my throat.
"I've got it! I've got it!" I managed to croak
before my senator
politely
hung up, smoking a Tastes Good while he
lynched the country by casting
his vote
against Clean Air.
Death didn't bother me, but I hated like hell
to be put in that polluted, rank earth.
Sherry Coogle
TBEBBND
1 BICKWSRD BUNCE
MICHAEL BOGGS
Perhaps the most pointed analysis of the
relationships between rock music and the
socio-political realm of contemporary life can
be found in Plato: "forms and rhythms in
music are never changed without producing
changes in the most important political forms
and ways;" and indeed, the only art form that
has accurately reflected the cultural
revolution of the past decade has been rock
music. But this role as the vanguard of revolt
has generated in rock a self-consciousness that
has sorely limited its ability to transcend the
boundaries of counter-cultural nationalism
and express relevant, universal truths that
stand independent of popular cultural and
political conflicts. The majority of its artists
have abused rock music's inherent eclecticism
and instead of assuming a truly revolutionary
role by speaking of and to static forces of the
old in a voice that is both new and exciting,
they have opted for a soaring, detached
idealism that has left that great segment of
society that controls, and is in dire need of,
change unimpressed. This is not to say that
rock music's own community grow weary of
suffering its shrill and philistine tone, a radical
change is necessary and forthcoming. As
Jaime Robbie Robertson of The Band has put
it: "now people are saying, let's hear the
truth; we haven't heard it for a long, long
time."
The Band, whose music has been variously
classified as "country rock" (Time), "pop
nostalgia" (Richard Goldstein), and
"American truth" (Ralph J. Gleason), is the
most recently emerged, and potentially the
most important major rock and roll group
performing today. The Band's first album,
Music from Big Pink (Capitol, SKAO 2955),
was aimed directly at breaking the deafening
grip held on rock by the psychedelicized San
Francisco sound. "We could have done an
album anytime," sayd Robertson, "it was a
planned statement." The basic source for the
nature and direction of Big Pink is Dylan: the
taut, Blakeian irony of "In a Station," the
apocolyptic vision of "To Kingdom Come,"
and the surrealism of "Chest Fever" all reflect
the tone and texture of the pre-Nashville
Skyline Bob Dyland. But the greater part of
Big Pink is caored by the singular qualities of
The Band: the undeniably American tone, the
rural/bibl/cal/traditional images, the
sympathy for sentiments and values that have
paled before the opulence of a culturally
revolting America. Big Pink is a search for
balance, for a style and expression that
marries The Band's two worlds of experience:
the ten year they spent maturing the dives
and honkeytonks of the American south
(playing places where "you had to puke twice
and show you razor to get in"), and the two
years they traveled with Dylan in the U. S.,
England, and Europe on a grand tour that
revolutionized rock music be creating
folk-rock. Neither world can be denied, and in
Big Pink The Band seeks a way of molding the
revolution of electric music around an
experimental core of traditional, rural
America:
Pulling that eternal plough:
We've got to find a sharper blade.
Or have a new one made.
("We can Talk")
The Band opted for making a completely
"new blade," and what was hinted at in Big
Pink was more than fulfilled in their second
album. The Band (Capitol, STAO 132).
It would not be a useless generalization to
say the The Band is the most mature work
produced in rock and roll to date, for if there
is anything that rock lacks it is maturity. The
quality and originality of the vocals,
instrumentation, and lyrics in The Band
produce a depth that illustrates what someone
once termed the "art of density." The first
time you play the album you are caught by
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," or
"Up on Cripple Creek," or "Rocking Chair,"
but in subsequent playings these songs seem
obvious as the subtle geniur of the rest of the
album slowly begins to surface. The Band
does not depend on a particular sensibility or
sensitivity for its success, but rather it creates
sensitivities, paints over them with new ones,
and then revives them in altered and
expanded forms. Focus shifts from general to
particular and back to general, much like the
viewing of a Bruegel painting.
The Band does what rock music is best
suited for— it takes large moods and emotions,
distills them, functioning like Eliot's
,, objective correlative," evokes these
sentiments by a particular vocal pattern or
instrumental riff. Take a song like "The Night
They Drove Old Dixie Down"— nothing in the
writings of Bruce Catton or McKinley Kantor
evokes a clear, more tangible vision of Civil
War American than this vignette. Listening to
the texture of the loose, soaring harmonies,
one finds it hard to believe that this is not
some fold tradition that has been handed
down from the "winter of '65" to the
present. One is reminded of a Matthew Brady
Daguerreotype by the grainy dissonance of
the chorus in "Dixie"— a delicate interrelation
between music and lyric that is the special
mark of The Band. It is a balance between
form and content that is found everywhere in
The Band:
In the near falsetto vocal of Richard
Manuel in "Whispering Pines" that chills the
ear much as the lyrics freeze the spine:
J7
S
In the crunchy drums and droning
clavinette in "Up on Cripple Creek" that
produces a rolling backgrouns for the images
of truck-driving through the American south:
In the driving piano that matches the
raciness of "Jemima Surrender;"
In the mandolin of "Rockin' Chair" that
serves not only to underscore the weariness of
"pushing age. seventy-three," but also adds a
tiny sparkle apropos to a song about an aging
seaman. In every case, The Band's music is
meticulously conceived and executed, and
seldom is there an effect or sound used that
does not in some way complement the
sentiment attempted by the song. The
superfluous note is rare in The Band.
But the singular, driving force behind The
Band, the quality that has made them the
Band is their sympathetic preoccupation with
life on the land; with the massive, incumbent
America that lies between the decay of New
York and the opulence of California. This is
the America that made them, the one they
know best, the one that has marked them
forever as an anachronism. When they stepped
out to play before the multitudes at
Woodstock, they could have just as well been
playing to a beer-soaked bar audience in
Beaumont, Texas. It is all there in "King
Harvest (Has Surely Come)" as The Band
speaks almost too knowingly of a life-style
that lives unnoticed in the sprawl of an urban,
culturally-oriented America. Robertson rattles
his guitar as Helm and Danko sing:
Corn in the fields
Listen to the rice as the wind blows cross
the water
King Harvest has surely come
There is a smirking irony in "King Harvest"
that transcends mere nostalgia and sentiment
and becomes one of the "American truths" of
which Ralph J. Gleason speaks:
You know, I'm glad to pay those union dues
Just don't judge me by my shoes
"King Harvest" closes The Band at a level of
mature understanding and musical finesse that
marks the pinnacle of The Band's
achievement to date. But perhaps it is the end
of "King Harvest" itself that is the zenith of
their work, and a true reflection of all that
has gone before. Robbie Robertson plays a
haunting, bittersweet lead quitar line that
rises from his instrument as lean and sparse as
the land of which it speaks— cutting through
the decay of the existing urban culture and
the empty rhetoric of the cultural revolution
to a vision that is lost, forgotten and sorely
missed:
Corn in the fields
Listen to the rice as the wind blows cross the water
King Harvest has surely come
But when twenty brown dipped breasts
pressed against his flannel chest
it was hardly one of those valiant escapes
in the sloop without sails
the deck sans rails
his battered teeth biting his own neck
But with the chastity strap
slicing his larynx,
he requested that they strip him from the sidewalk
and spread him on the boiling bed
where he flipped from stomach to stomach (the teeth)
But after shoving the ship over miles of shallows
toward the abortive assassination,
he stuck the scraper behind his ear
and presented his lesser intestines to the pistol.
But after receiving there slugs in the groin
and one in the greater intestine,
he found it distressing to digest
the new psychological situation.
And so with explicit prescriptions
and a note from the doctor,
he boarded the shortholiday plane
to the sunbeach capital of the world
where he dreampt
about sloops without sails
and decks sans rails
and the assassinated aborted abortion.
And also when he convinced himself
that he had surely lost control
of the power
in the tiny channels
which seemed to be collapsing,
and could no longer navigate
inside his cerebrum
Well then he began to befriend
the gunman who seemed to enjoy
shooting him so.
Jon Gillespie
mate toad criticism:
>ond to (criticize)
h the creation of more
timatetoadcriticism prompts a sort of
plagerism
suggesting that inspiration for art could/should come from
er art works, that the world created by one artist through
work could be sued as the subject of another's criticism
(art).
speaks for itself. Were it meant to "say" more
n it does, the artist would have stated it within
art work.
Criticism, therefore, can
justly explain or restate nothing
)ut the work of art because the work of art states
sverything that it states itself.
o ,,_
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footnote:
ultimate (to the furthest extremity*
toad (toad: /tod/ n., often attrib (ME tode, fr. OE tade,
tadige) 1 . any of numerous tailless leaping amphibians
(esp. family Bufonidae) that as compared with the
related frogs are generally more terrestial in habit
though returning to water to lay their eggs, squatter
and shorter in build and with weaker hindlimbs, and
rough, dry and warty rather than smooth and moist of
skin 2. a contemptible person or thing
Art is successful
Art if successful
if it stimulates any sort of response
at all
in the receiver.
Extension of art (ultimate toad criticism)
is the affirmation of worth
or the nonworth worth
of the art.
Criticize bad art by
1. Ignoring it
2. Parodying it
3. (re "The Magic Christian") Marking it sold
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